AVID Balances Collaboration with Learning

By Jillian Daley

North Marion seventh-grader Ember Goms, who some classmates call Barbie for her naturally golden hair, is terrified of heights. 

Yet Goms still summoned the courage to participate in the team-building field trip at Salem Ropes last week because she didn’t want to disappoint the other students in her Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Elective Class. How did she do it?

“You know how Barbie has a lot of careers and she’s really brave?” Goms said. “This sounds really weird, but I used the mindset of Barbie.”

Why Go to a Ropes Course?

Although not always fond of the nickname, Goms found strength in it. This perspective allowed her to climb ropes with the other students participating on the field trip from both AVID classes, one for seventh-graders and one for eighth-graders. But why were Goms and the other AVID students doing the ropes course? How does it help a class to work together to complete obstacles?  

“AVID is not only about academic success, but also preparing students for success in the workplace, college and life in general!” Seventh-Grade AVID Elective Class Teacher Chelsea Landry explained. “We focus on skills that students need to be successful in these areas that are not entirely academic, like perseverance, grit, teamwork, communication, cooperation, and leadership. At the ropes course, students focused specifically on those skills and learned to trust each other.”

She said that many AVID activities involve building teamwork and trust. That’s key for students, according to the experts. Through collaboration, “students learn material more deeply and develop personal skills that will last a lifetime,” says an article on the National Education Association website.

“We like to start off each AVID elective year with this field trip to build those skills with our classes so that we can go further together through the school year in collaborative study groups, tutorials, etc.," Landry said.

How Does AVID Help Students?

What is AVID and how can it help students with academic and social and emotional growth? AVID is a nationwide program that focuses on not only success in college, but in a future career, inspiring students to reach for their dreams. 

The Middle School opened its own AVID site in the 2021-22 school year, a change that included an elective class for seventh-graders. The Middle School added an Elective Class for eighth-graders this fall, allowing last year’s seventh-graders to continue growing the skills they started developing in AVID. 

AVID also offers schoolwide resources that essentially sample the Elective Classes’ content, guiding students on how to perform better on tests and to raise their grades by improving their organization and note taking skills.

The goal is to expand the AVID program to other grade levels in the coming years, and that’s a worthy goal, as having an AVID class can lead to systemic change at a school, Eighth-Grade AVID Elective Class Teacher Amanda Kahle said. While AVID offers these elective classes for students who might like a few more resources to grow as they have always wanted to do, it also provides resources to all students.

Kahle and Landry instruct all the other North Marion Middle School teachers in how to help their students obtain key AVID skills, such as carefully organizing the school binder students use. The reason for involving the whole school is linked to researcher John Hattie’s theory of collective teacher efficacy: when a group of educators works together, all believing that they can succeed in helping their classes, students will often respond by fulfilling that expectation and succeeding. 

“If you all work together and all do the same thing, the growth you can see in your students will be like nothing else,” Kahle said.

In Their Own Words

The students in Kahle’s and Landry’s classes have learned a great deal in AVID and were eager to share that with their school and their community. One of the things that many of the students highlighted were Costa’s Levels of Inquiry, sometimes just called Costa’s questions. This note-taking strategy involves organizing information while also guiding students toward higher thinking through deeper levels of questioning around that information.

Note-Taking and Test-Taking Tips

• “We learn all about Costa’s questions, how to raise your grade, and good ways to take a test: You read all the questions, and if you get stuck, you can skip the question,” said seventh-grader Shea Thornton, who’s intent on becoming a zoo keeper. 
• “We’re learning to take notes right now,” explained seventh-grader Meyli Gutierrez Barajas, who plans to be a nurse. “You section them out. Ask questions. Apply the knowledge.” 
• Eighth-grader Esabela Nañez, who intends to own her own business own day, said that the ropes course was really fun and she enjoyed the exercise, but she is really excited about what AVID has done to support her in school: “It’s helped with my other classes since I do AVID, the note taking.”
• Seventh-grader Daniel Miranda, who plans to be a soccer player, attend Oregon State University, and join the Army, said that the ropes course taught him to be braver, to trust others, and to problem solve as a group: “You can strategize and learn to work with other people.”
• Eighth-grader Jude Arreola, who wants to be a pilot when he's older, is also happy with the results AVID has given him: “It’s a relatively easy class that helps me get better grades.” To improve how students take tests, he said Kahle divided her class into groups, and each group presented on how to best perform on a different type of exam. Arreloa’s group presented on fill-in-the-blank style tests, which involve not only filling in the most likely answer, but making sure it actually makes sense, grammatically, when added to the sentence.

Looking to the Future

AVID offers students skills as diverse as team collaboration, note taking, and test taking that they can use now and in the future. The class, which includes field trips to local colleges, also encourages students to think about their dreams. Goms summed up all it has to offer in a few words.

“AVID helps get you ready for what you want to be in the future,” Goms said.

What does she see in her future?

“I have a plan: I’m going to be the first in my family to graduate from high school and college,” Goms explained.

To share stories on the North Marion School District, email Communications Specialist Jillian Daley at jillian.daley@nmarion.k12.or.us.